Packaging apparatus



6 H. w. HARRISON PACKAGING APPARATUS Filed Nov. 14, 1963 flaw/y l V. flCY/fi/JOH INVENTOR.

ATTORNEY 0. g a z ZL w 4 O m a 5 4 0 w 5 J m 1 I 4- 3 w \k 3 av M6 Zi 3,354,799 PACKAGING APPARATUS Harry W. Harrison, 2510 Broad St., Houston, Tex. 77017 Filed Nov. 14, 1963, Ser. No. 323,798 8 Claims. (Cl. 93-82) This invention relates to package making apparatus, and more particularly it relates to substantially automatic equipment by which bags are formed from a heat sealable web material such as polyethylene sheet material, wax paper and the like.

Packaging apparatus by which a continuous web of sheet material is shaped into tubular form and a plurality of packages are formed from this tubular material are well known. One example of such apparatus is shown in the patent to Zwoyer, U.S. Patent No. 1,986,422, issued Jan. 1, 1935.

In such prior art apparatus the web material is fed from a web supply roll through some sort of tensioning device such as a festooner, and thence over a former where the fiat sheet material is formed into an elongated vertically disposed tube in which the longitudinal edges of the strip material overlap. Means are there provided for sealing the overlapping longitudinal edges together, and a pair of jaws is provided for clamping the tube below the former and sealing the tube transversely of the longitudinal seal. These jaws are provided with means for severing the packaging material intermediate the transverse seal. During the forming of the transverse seal the jaws move downwardly away from the former so as to pull more of the web material over the former. During such downward movement the product is dropped into the tube. When the jaws reach the bottom of their stroke the package therebelow is severed and the jaws release the tube and move upwardly to grip it again above the level of the product therein. The cycle is then repeated.

Such apparatus as has heretofore been available has been capable of making only one package at a time. In some instances two or more machines are in effect combined so as to form more than one package at a time. In my copending application Ser. No. 291,539 filed June 28, 1963, now abandoned, I have disclosed a packaging machine in which a plurality of packages may be formed at the same time. According to the copending application it is not necessary to duplicate the majority of the elements of the machine in order to form a plurality of packages.

The present invention provides apparatus which is capable of forming twice as many or nearly twice as many packages as can be formed by the apparatus of the aforesaid copending application. In order to accomplish this it is only necessary to add a former for each additional package which is to be made. In most instances it is not necessary to modify any of the other elements of the machine nor is it necessary to add any additional elements to the machine. This novel result is accomplished according to this invention by providing an additional set of formers at a level above the level of the basic set of formers and spacing the formers on the higher level between those of the lower level. Two web supply rolls are provided, one of which feeds web to the upper level formers and the other of which feeds web to the lower level formers. All of the formed tubes are gripped by the same pair of jaws, and one package is formed for each former upon each stroke of the pair of jaws.

For a better understanding of the invention reference is now made to the following description and to the accompanying drawing, wherein FIGURE 1 is an elevational view of a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIGURE 2 is a partial plan view showing the disposition of the formers in the embodiment of the invention shown in FIGURE 1, this view being taken at line 2--2 of FIGURE 1; and

FIGURE 3 is a partial front elevational view of the embodiment of FIGURE 1 taken at line 33- of FIG- URE 1.

As shown in FIGURE 1 of the drawing, a housing 10 encloses motive apparatus as is fully described in my aforesaid copending application. A rotatable shaft 12 eX- tending from the housing 10 has mounted thereon a web supply roll 14 and below the web supply roll 14 another web supply roll 16 is mounted upon a rotatable shaft 18. As is shown in the drawing a web 20 is fed from web supply roll 14 and a web 22 is fed from Web supply roll 16. The webs 20 and 22 are drawn from the websupply rolls by means of a power roll 24. After passing over the power roll the webs pass under a festooning roll 26 and thence over a first idler roll 28 and under a second idler roll 30.

Idler roll 30 is mounted upon a supporting plate 32 which also provides mounting for a former supporting shaft 34. A plurality of former support frames 36 are adjustably mounted upon the former supporting shaft. Two angle frames 38 are adjustably mounted on two of the support frames 36 and are attached to formers 40 and 42. It will be seen that formers 40 and 42 are on a level lower than formers 44 and 46, mounted on angle frames 48 which are also adjustably mounted on the former support frames 36.

As more fully described in my aforesaid copending application, each former comprises a back portion 50 and a tubular portion 52 (see FIGURE 1). The back portion of each former is utilized to provide support for the web during its transformation from a flat sheet to a curved sheet.

As is apparent in FIGURE 2, web 20 from web supply roll 14 is fed to the two upper formers 44 and 46. A knife 54 is provided at the lower rearward edge of the adjacent back portions of formers 44 and 46 and provides means for splitting the web 20 into two pieces, one for each of the two formers. The knife 54 is mounted upon a knife holder 56 which is in turn mounted upon a knife holder shaft 58. The knife holder shaft 58 is made rotatable by means of a handle 60 so that the knife 54 may be turned into and out of engagement with the web.

Similarly web 22 is fed to the two lower formers 40 and 42 and is split by a knife 54 which is mounted upon a similar knife holder 56 and shaft 58.

At the point of initial engagement of the web with the back portion of the former the back portion has a width which is substantially equal to the width of the Web. However upon being curved and transformed the web width is reduced and therefore a lesser lateral space is required. While passing through the tubular portion of the former the total lateral space occupied by the web is less than one third of the initial width of the web. Thus the back edges of the back portions of the formers may be positioned immediately adjacent each other, while the tubular portions of those formers on the higher level may be spaced intermediate the tubular portions of the formers on the lower level.

\Upon passing through the tubular portions of the formers the edges of the Web are overlapped and are then engaged by heat sealing means, which may for example comprise a heater and thermostat unit 62 positioned to engage the outside of the longitudinal seam formed in the former and a backup strip 64 which extends down through the tubular portion 52 of each former into the interior of the tube formed therein. The backup strip is U-shaped, having one leg clamped in a cross bar 66 on a frame member 68 which is mounted on the supporting shaft 3 34. Frame member 68 may for example comprise an extension of the supporting frame 3'6. The heater and thermostat unit 62 preferably is pivotally supported from the cross bar 66 so that it may be swung out of the way when the web is initially threaded through the former.

Below the formers and the heat sealing means apparatus is provided for engaging the tubular web to transversely seal it and to cut off bags formed by such transverse sealing. Such means comprises a pair of jaws 70 of a type well known in the art which are adapted to be moved vertically, to close together upon and seal the tubular Web material at the top of their vertical movement, to move downwardly to pull the web material over the formers while effecting a transverse seal and cutting off the tube intermediate the transverse seal, and to open at the bottom of their stroke in order to release the bag thus formed and cut oif.

As seen in FIGURE 3, the flattened tubular web in the jaws has a Width which is slightly less than one half the width of web which initially engages the back of the former. Thus the alternate overlapping spacing of the upper and lower formers is made possible, even though a single pair of jaws engages all the tubular webs.

Means not shown in the drawing are provided above the formers to fill the bags made thereon during the time the jaws 70 are moving downwardly and during their upward movement before they engage the tubular web to form'a new bag. Such filling means are well known in the art and do not form a part of the present invention, therefore no description of such means is thought necessary here.

It will be apparent that the web supply rolls 14 and 16 are parallel to each other but are not transversely aligned with each other although they do overlap somewhat. In the embodiment shown in the drawing the amount of overlap is as depicted in FIGURE 2 for the overlap of webs 20 and 22. The power roll 22 pulls both webs off the web supply rolls and the festooner 26 provides a tension on the webs and moves vertically, as between the solid line and the broken line showings in FIGURE 1, as necessary to compensate for the intermittent pulling of the web 'over the formers by the jaw 70. As is more fully described in my aforesaid copending application, the power roll 24 continuously feeds web to the festooner 26 during the intermittent drawing of the web over the formers by the jaws 70.

It will be apparent that means have been provided by the, present invention whereby the capacity of a bag forming machine may be substantially double by merely adding an additional web supply roll and by doubling the number of formers. This advantageous result is due to the staggering of the formers at two different levels so that the tubular portions of the formers and the tubular webs formed thereon are interspersed along the width of the machine, whereby a high proportion of the lateral space on the machine is utilized. All of the tubes formed may be engaged by the jaws at the same time so as to form one bag for each former upon every stroke of the jaws.

It will be apparent that although four formers are shown in the drawing for making four bags at a time, a number of variations may be made in the number of formers and therefore the number of bags made at one stroke of the jaws. For example the advantageous results of this invention are attained when there is only one former at each level. Similarly the number of formers may be increased to seven, for example, with three at one level and four at another level. Of course it would be necessary to reduce the size of the bag in order to make seven bags on the same machine. Additional knives may be provided to split the web into the desired number of pieces. It will be appreciated that the formers of the present design are readily removable from the machine so that they may be replaced with different numbers and/ or different sizes of formers.

Although a preferred embodiment of this invention has been shown and described herein, the invention is not limited to such embodiment but only as set forth by the following claims. As will be noted, the claims are in paragraph form to facilitate examination and study, however such form is not intended to be limiting in any manner but the claims are to be constructed as though such form were not used.

What is claimed is:

1. Package making apparatus comprising support means for positioning at least two Web supply rolls in overlapping parallel relationship,

at least one tube former for forming a tube from the web from each web supply roll,

support means for said formers, and

a pair of reciprocable separable jaws for separately engaging the tubes from both of said web supply rolls and advancing said tubes in increments with respect to said formers.

2. Package making apparatus as defined by claim 1 wherein the former for the web from one web supply roll is positioned above the former for the web from the other web supply roll.

3. Package making apparatus comprising support means for positioning at least two web supply rolls in overlapped parallel relationship,

at least one tube former for forming a tube from the web from each web supply roll,

each said former being of the type which forms a continuous tubular member from a continuous web when the Web is pulled over it,

support means positioning the former for the web from one web supply roll above and partially overlapping the former for the web from the other web supply roll, and

a pair of reciprocable separable jaws positioned below said formers adapted to separately engage all of the formed tubular members and to move downwardly to advance the webs with respect to the formers.

4. Package making apparatus as defined by claim 3 and including at least two formers in immediate side-by-side relationship for each web, and

means intermediate each web supply roll and its related formers for longitudinally splitting said web as it is pulled over the formers.

5. Package making apparatus as defined by claim 4 wherein said last-named means comprises a knife located between each pair of adjacent formers.

6. In apparatus wherein a continuous flat web is formed into a tubular member,

a plurality of formers each having a back portion substantially as wide as the web being formed and a front tubular portion,

at least one of said formers being positioned at a level higher than that of the other formers,

the formers on each level having their back portions immediately adjacent each other,

the centerlines of all of the tubular portions lying in the same plane, and

the tubular portion of at least one former on one level being positioned so that its back portion overlaps the back portion of a former on the other level.

7. In package making apparatus for making tubular packages from a continuous flat web, including means to support a supply of the continuous web,

a plurality of tube formers each adapted to form a tube from said web upon movement of said web over a tube former,

means for engaging the web and advancing it with respect to said tube formers, and

sealing and cutting means for sealing and cutting the tubes into a plurality of bags,

the improvement which comprises means to support said tube formers with at least one higher than another and with the distance between their centerlines less than the width of the web being formed and greater than the width of the finished package.

8. In package making apparatus for making tubular packages from a continuous flat web, including means to support a supply of the continuous web,

a plurality of tube formers each adapted to form a tube from said web upon movement of said web over a tube former,

means for engaging the Web and advancing it with respect to said tube formers, and

sealing and cutting means for sealing and cutting the tubes into a plurality of bags,

the improvement which comprises means to support said tube formers in staggered relationship at at least two different levels so that the tubes formed by the tube formers on 6 one level are aligned with the tubes formed by the tube formers on another level, and occupy space in the alignment not occupied by tubes formed on said other level.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS TRAVIS S. MCGEHEE, Primary Examiner.

FRANK E. BAILEY, Examiner.

S. A. BEND, N. A. ABRAMS, Assistant Examiners. 

1. PACKAGE MAKING APPARATUS COMPRISING SUPPORT MEANS FOR POSITIONING AT LEAST TWO WEB SUPPLY ROLLS IN OVERLAPPING PARALLEL RELATIONSHIP, AT LEAST ONE TUBE FORMER FOR FORMING A TUBE FROM THE WEB FROM EACH WEB SUPPLY ROLL, SUPPORT MEANS FOR SAID FORMERS, AND A PAIR OF RECIPROCABLE SEPARABLE JAWS FOR SEPARATELY ENGAGING THE TUBES FROM BOTH OF SAID WEB SUPPLY ROLLS AND ADVANCING SAID TUBES IN INCREMENTS WITH RESPECT TO SAID FORMERS. 